Servant Leadership - YouTube

This video will look at servant leadership. We'll look at its origins and

also how it can be applicable today. So let's unpack the details.

Hello there I'm Alex Lyon. Welcome back.

If this is your first time tuning in to this

channel, Communication Coach, we are here for rising leaders probably people like you.

If you want to increase your impact and lead the people around you to higher

levels of excellence, then this is the channel for you. And today we're talking

about servant leadership, a really important topic because I feel it lines

up directly with how I see leadership on this channel.

Most the information we got for this video comes from Robert K. Greenleaf, he

coined this term in the 1970s and I will put a link to his website in the

description below the video. I encourage you to look into the details a little

bit more for that. So servant leadership is a philosophy, a leadership philosophy,

a way of looking at leadership. And depending upon how you look at

leadership, it's going to influence how you act as a leader. So before we get

into a servant leadership, it's the best strategy is to compare it to traditional

leadership because it's really a counterpoint to traditional leadership.

Traditional leadership sees the people lower on this pyramid of

leadership, lower in this structure, serving the leaders in authority above

them. So that people below serve the leaders. Obviously this is very different

than servant leadership. It's a very boss- centered approach, this traditional

approach where the person in authority typically is looking to amass more power

and more control and unfortunately this can devalue other people. People below

the leaders often feel quote, "used and abused." And anytime I watch a movie or a

show about the Victorian era in England, I start to think about this traditional

view of leadership where there's the person in authority, the family that owns

the mansion, owns the estate and the servants literally live below them in

the basement of the house oftentimes. And everything that happens in that house is

there to serve the family. Now that's of course, these are movies and I didn't

live back then but I always think about this traditional view

of leadership and authority when I watch those movies. Servant leadership

really flips this whole equation on its head. Servant leadership is grounded

in many of the religions, of course. In fact Jesus said directly "whoever wants

to be first must be the servant of all" This is a classic servant leadership

example. In fact, what he said also was you don't want to be like the other

leaders. You don't want to quote "lord it over people." So that's definitely servant

leadership. Obviously people are still in charge. They're still the leader but

they're leading by serving, by thinking about how they can benefit the people

that are under their care. That's why people like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Nelson

Mandela are classic examples of servant leaders. They have a deep sense of

responsibility for the people that they lead. A lot of people don't know

this, but Gandhi was trained as an attorney, as a lawyer he had a high level

of education but he thought the best way to have influence was to serve and so he

changed his whole life style and approach to lead from that place

of being a servant to other people.

In today's organizations, it really makes

sense to be a servant leader because the basic idea is that if you invest in

other people, then they will help you build a better organization. And that's

why you see servant leaders developing other people, essentially bringing out

the best and other people, getting them the best training, treating them well,

making sure they're fully satisfied at work so that they can contribute and

reach their full potential. Servant leaders are known for their good

treatment of the people that are under their care and they're known for

cultivating collaboration, trust, and empathy. So, that's a brief look at

servant leadership and how it contrasts to traditional leadership. So, my question

of the day to you is I would love to hear about your examples of servant

leadership who have you worked for? Now you don't need to name names, but I would

like to hear, Oh, I work for a supervisor at this pizza place and

was a really good servant leader and here's why. I would love to hear your

stories and examples below. I can't wait to read them. I think it's really

important to articulate these things, to name them so that we know servant

leadership when we see it and we're much more able to do it ourselves as rising

leaders. So thanks. God bless and I will see you in the next video.

Hello again.

I hope you enjoyed that video on servant leadership. I would like to invite you to

check out a free course I created on Essential Professional Communication

skills. It's for rising leaders. If you'd like to take a look at that I'll put a

link to that in the description below the video and hopefully in one of these

end cards as well as the card in the top corner of this screen. So invite you to

check that out and I hope you enjoy it. So thanks. God bless. Take care.